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The Last of Us Fanon Wiki:Creating a story
Creating a story of your own is no easy task. As such, a guide with some useful tricks and advice for new fanon authors has been provided below. If you encounter any issues, please contact an administrator and they'll try to help you out to the best of their abilities. Creating a fanon Main Page To start off your new fanfiction, it's best to create a main page, which will act as the hub of the fanon by containing links to chapters and characters, providing general information on the story, and show news and updates for eager readers. You can spot a main page by the headings it will naturally be filled with. # Commonly used headings are: #:* Plot - Under this heading you write in the plot, let the reader know what your story is about, but make sure you don't give away any big spoilers or ruin the surprise fans like in chapters. #:* Characters - Here you put in the characters, and maybe a short description. This could include their gender, weapon, political position, and/or profession. As your story grows bigger, you can create character pages, to which you can link to from the characters list you have on your main page. #:* Chapters - You can also make a list of all published chapters, with a link to the actual chapter, and the unpublished ones. # Add the appropriate categories (see below) # Hit "Preview" to see how your page has turned out, and if it is to your liking, hit "Publish". Chapters Chapters are going to be the most important part of your fanon. After all, they actually tell the story. It is advised to first create several chapter pages before starting to create pages for characters, battles, and locations. Create a new page with your chapter name, and you can get to work. Title You may find that some authors prefer to specifically state the chapter number and/or their fanon's title between parenthesis in their title (E.g. "Chapter 1: The Hunt (Joel's Dark Days)" vs "Chapter 1: The Hunt"). There is no set format for this and it is left to the authors preference. Note that if you use this format, it is easier for passersby to immediately notice the chapter number and the fanon series it is a part of. Content Now that your page is equipped with the necessary templates, the actual content can be added. There is no set length requirement for a chapter page, but make sure that there is sufficient content so the reader has actually something to read. Try to vary your wording usage, in order to bring color to your writing and avoid being repetitive, and use proper grammar, not many readers will be interested in sitting out a chapter that is packed with spelling and/or grammar mistakes. If you know that this isn't your strongest side, consider asking another person to be your editor. Things to note: * Make sure to always capitalize the first letter of a name and the first letter of a new sentence. * Separate your sentences by using appropriate punctuation. * Divide your text in paragraphs. It is tiresome to read a whole wall of text, so make sure to make it lighter by dividing it up regularly. * When depicting a conversation between people, make sure to start a new line whenever a new person takes the word. Note the you'll either have to leave a white line between two lines or use the ::E.g. the preferred and most neat way to separate sentences is by leaving a white line between lines: :::"Might I see your swords?" :::He flushes. "My swords?" Reaching back, he curls his hand about the hilts but not move extend them, trying to meet her gaze; she stares at him coolly, though her mind is a jumble of half-whispered memories. "It's against the rules for someone to see one's swords without defeating them in honorable combat - " :::"Oh, the rules." She waves a hand nonchalantly. "I don't believe in them except when it suits me, and at the moment, it doesn't suit me at all." ::E.g. Using to separate sentence. Note that this coding will not add a white line, it will only enable the author to start a new sentence on the next line. :::"Might I see your swords?" :::He flushes. "My swords?" Reaching back, he curls his hand about the hilts but not move extend them, trying to meet her gaze; she stares at him coolly, though her mind is a jumble of half-whispered memories. "It's against the rules for someone to see one's swords without defeating them in honorable combat - " :::"Oh, the rules." She waves a hand nonchalantly. "I don't believe in them except when it suits me, and at the moment, it doesn't suit me at all." * Refrain from using abbreviations, but rather write everything in full. ::E.g. Write "See you later," not "c u l8r." Categories In order to neatly group your story into one nice package, we advise you add the category Category:Name work]] so readers know what stories are yours. You are also advised to add the categories appropriate for the type of page you created: *Category:Characters *Category:Chapters *Category:Genres **The appropriate category for the genre (eg: Category:Action *Category:Mainpage *Category:Battle *Category:Organisation This way, everything g becomes neatly organised and readers can easily flick through and view yours and others work with ease throughout their time here at The Last of Us Fanon Wiki. For each story/chapter page, also provide some link back to the main page of the Fanon it is a part of; this could be making a category for that Fanon specifically or just prodding a link/notice that it is part of one of your Fanons. Publish You can click the "Preview" button to overview the layout of your page one last time and if you are completely satisfied, you can publish the page by clicking the "Publish" button. In order to maintain a clean layout, it is advised that all the chapters after your first chapter following the same format you've chosen on that one. This doesn't not mean, however, that you can't alter the infobox's color on each chapter. Other fanon pages These types of pages will tend to be ones like a conflict or battle it that occurred on your story (eg: "Battle of Salt Lake City") an organisation or group (eg: "The Fireflies") or a certain place that serves as significant in the story (eg: "Joel's hideout"). As with all pages on this wiki, these ones will be expected to have sufficient content in them (see standards). As always, the chapters and main pages will be expected to be where the brunt of your story occurs; the "other" pages are meant only as assistance in expanding you stories world, not to be the story itself. Tips These are the same as before when creating a chapter page: * Use the correct spelling and grammar. If you can't do it by yourself, there are always people willing to help out, so don't be afraid to leave someone a message, asking for their help. Even the best fanon authors have had some sort of help. * If the page contains content that you feel could spoil your story, not including chapter pages, then you can add the template to alert readers to such. This is not a required field though. * Divide your text by using headings like explained before. Commonly used headings are: ** For characters: history, abilities, personality, and relatives. ** For locations: history, and geography. ** For battles: history, conflict etc. A final word of caution Before you start your fanon, know that the policies are held in high regard on , so make sure that you've read them all before starting your fanon. If one of your pages does not meet these standards, it will be moved and a message will follow: users are expected to leave (at the very least) the on the author's message wall so they know their story has been removed from the main space. To authors, if and when your page is moved to your userspace, you'll get a message alerting you that your page has been moved and provide you with a link to its new location. Having your page in your userspace means that it is no longer considered to be part of the fanon portal. The page is to remain there until you've expanded it enough or fixed any other issue for what it was moved. When you think you've brought your page up the minimum required standard, you should contact an administrator by leaving a message on their message wall, inviting them to review your page's quality before they - and only them - can move it back to the fanon portal. Continuity Making a story You should know, it's not easy to make a story. You have to write out chapters, and maybe character pages, battles, events, etc. You have to organize it, and hope that people like it, and keep reading it. It is a lot of work, so think it through before you begin. Please don't just make one and leave it to die. Story standards Make sure you read the Standards and the rest of the policy pages. If your fanon gets moved to your userspace, don't get angry. Just improve the page and request one of the the administrators on their message wall to review it. Readers One of the hardest parts to get your story to be successful is to attract readers, as this is the one thing that you cannot do yourself. You cannot force anyone to read your fanon, but there are some things that you can try to shed some more light on your story and bring it to people's attention. # Alter your signature to include a link to your story. This way, whenever you leave your signature somewhere, people will be provided with a link to your story as well. If you don't know how to do this, just ask another user and they'll be glad to help # Read other fanons and leave comments. Under the motto of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours," this might get you some more readers. # Meet the fanon community, go onto IRC. # Never give up without a fight. Even when you have few readers, keep making those chapters to the best of your abilities, keep the story flowing and one day, those readers will come. # Keep the standard of your story high, so one day it may even win some awards. The possible awards are: Leaving messages on user's talk pages, or in comments on their fanons, or even on canon pages, asking people to read your fanon is not the way to gather more readers, as those messages are often considered to be spam, and are subject to deletion for said reasons. Just keep working hard and the recognition of the fanon community will come. Aknowledgements The general structure and advise present in this article has been provided by Avatar Wiki. The original source of this information can be found here.